An Empirical Assessment of Gender Inequality in Human Development: Evidence from G20 Countries

Abstract

Gender inequality continues to be more persistent across societies than any other form of inequality. According to the 2020 UN Human Development Report, no country has reached low inequality in human development without reducing the loss coming from gender inequality. Acknowledging the limitations of existing indexes in measuring comparative country performances in reducing gender inequality, this study proposes a new composite index and an empirical methodology, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), for measuring G20 countries' comparative performance in reducing gender inequality in human development between 2014 and 2020. The DEA method enables better measuring the main weaknesses of countries regarding specific gender indicators and identifies potential role model capabilities among a group of countries. As an informal grouping, the G20 countries began to set yearly commitments to achieving gender equality as of 2012. Its mission statement of globalization work for all also took place in 2013. Therefore, G20 is a crucial platform for empirically analyzing the achievements of developed and developing world in reducing gender inequality in development. We also aim to contribute to research on better measuring gender development by proposing a new quantitative methodology for comparative analyses of the specific gender-related indicators through an analysis of G20 countries.